The rise and fall of civilizations over the past 4,000 years is reflected by the rise and fall of the number of people living in their great cities.
Between 2050 BC and the projected populations of 2050, the global centres of civilization have swung between the Middle East, Asia, Europe and North America.
The ancient world
Modern-day Iraq, Egypt and China all played host to the world’s largest cities for the first two millennia of this 4,000-year period.
With a population of just 35,000, the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis was the world’s largest for 100 years from 2050 BC.
Other Egyptian cities to feature during this early 2,000-year period included Thebes and Alexandria, which had a peak of 350,000 in 150 BC and was the largest population of any city up to 100 BC.
While Alexandria had the largest population, and the Chinese cities of Yinxu and Chengzhou also featured, this early period was dominated by the large populations of the ancient cities located in modern-day Iraq.
Time and again from 1950 BC until 350 BC, the biblical cities of Babylon, Nimrud, Nineveh, Ur and Uruk charted as the largest cities on the planet.
This included an uninterrupted 450-year period of domination starting with Nimrud’s population of 75,000 in 800 BC and peaking in Babylon’s population of 150,000 for 150 years between 500 BC and 350 BC.
Rome reigns
The animated map was produced as part of KPMG Australia Demographics partner Bernard Salt’s column for The Australian.
In his column, Salt identifies Rome as the standout city for the whole of the 4,000-year period.
“By the time of Jesus Christ, Rome had a million residents,” writes Salt.
“It was three times the scale of the previous biggest city, Alexandria. To place this in perspective, today’s biggest city, Tokyo (38 million), would need to be 78 million, or three times Delhi, which is the next largest, to have the same world impact as Rome did at the time of Christ.”
Rome stands out for both its scale and longevity. It was the world’s largest city for 550 years from 100 BC to 450 AD. This included a 250-year period at the start of the first millennium where Italy’s capital had 1 million residents.
It would be another 450 years before another city – Chang’an in China in 700 AD – would again reach 1 million inhabitants.
Industrial explosion
No city surpassed 1 million inhabitants for 1,400 years, until Beijing’s population hit 1.1 million in 1850.
The Chinese capital was soon outdone by London, which thanks to the Industrial Revolution and expansion of the British Empire was the world’s largest city from 1850 to 1900, with a population growing from 2.3 million to 6.6 million.
Industrialization at the turn of the 20th century proved pivotal for rapid population growth across the globe.
London’s dominance was superseded first by New York with a population of 12.3 million in 1950 and Tokyo with 26.4 million residents in 2000.
Salt and his KPMG colleagues predict that, by 2050, Tokyo will be overtaken by Delhi as the world’s largest city, with an estimated 40 million inhabitants.
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In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI).
States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.
In PAI 2021, PAC defined three significant pillars that embody Governance – Growth, Equity, and Sustainability. Each of the three Pillars is circumscribed by five governance praxis Themes.
The themes include – Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption.
At the bottom of the pyramid, 43 component indicators are mapped to 14 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are relevant to the States and UTs.
This forms the foundation of the conceptual framework of PAI 2021. The choice of the 43 indicators that go into the calculation of the CI were dictated by the objective of uncovering the complexity and multidimensional character of development governance
The Equity Principle
The Equity Pillar of the PAI 2021 Index analyses the inclusiveness impact at the Sub-national level in the country; inclusiveness in terms of the welfare of a society that depends primarily on establishing that all people feel that they have a say in the governance and are not excluded from the mainstream policy framework.
This requires all individuals and communities, but particularly the most vulnerable, to have an opportunity to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This chapter of PAI 2021 reflects the performance of States and UTs during the pandemic and questions the governance infrastructure in the country, analysing the effectiveness of schemes and the general livelihood of the people in terms of Equity.
Growth and its Discontents
Growth in its multidimensional form encompasses the essence of access to and the availability and optimal utilisation of resources. By resources, PAI 2021 refer to human resources, infrastructure and the budgetary allocations. Capacity building of an economy cannot take place if all the key players of growth do not drive development. The multiplier effects of better health care, improved educational outcomes, increased capital accumulation and lower unemployment levels contribute magnificently in the growth and development of the States.
The Pursuit Of Sustainability
The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.
The Curious Case Of The Delta
The Delta Analysis presents the results on the State performance on year-on-year improvement. The rankings are measured as the Delta value over the last five to 10 years of data available for 12 Key Development Indicators (KDI). In PAI 2021, 12 indicators across the three Pillars of Equity (five indicators), Growth (five indicators) and Sustainability (two indicators). These KDIs are the outcome indicators crucial to assess Human Development. The Performance in the Delta Analysis is then compared to the Overall PAI 2021 Index.
Key Findings:-
In the Scheme of Things
The Scheme Analysis adds an additional dimension to ranking of the States on their governance. It attempts to complement the Governance Model by trying to understand the developmental activities undertaken by State Governments in the form of schemes. It also tries to understand whether better performance of States in schemes reflect in better governance.
The Centrally Sponsored schemes that were analysed are National Health Mission (NHM), Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandh National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SmSA) and MidDay Meal Scheme (MDMS).
National Health Mission (NHM)
INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS)
MID- DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS)
SAMAGRA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN (SMSA)
MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME (MGNREGS)